alt Hacker NewsThe fact that we have ~8 billion people now vs ~1 billion in 1800 does make a difference to the equation, in terms of our own respiration and not just our deliberate use of fossil fuels. Admittedly it's minor, and I don't know what's happened to other biomass in that time. But still. The point is: having people eat more so that they could pedal a stationary bike hooked up to an electric generator, would not give "clean" power at the margin.
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We are carbon neutral against the earth as a whole. The problem is that sequestered carbon is now in the atmosphere. It doesn't matter how many people are breathing out carbon. It matters where that carbon came from, and where it ends up. Of course we now have so many humans that the majority of them are dependent on fossil fuels to survive, and as others have pointed out, not just for energy.
No, you are not getting what people are trying to tell you: growing the food for the extra 7 billion completely cancels out the co2 emitted from the 7 billion pairs of lungs. We know that because the C in that emitted CO2 all comes from food eaten by the person at some point in the person's life.